Why Artists are Pro-Censorship
My Speech from Freedom Festival 2023
I have just returned from Freedom Festival in Memphis, TN. What a line-up. Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, Nick Gillespie, RFK Jr, Vivek Ramaswamy, to name just a few. Censorship and free speech were discussed at length. And in my speech I opined as to why the censorship was on the rise, and the free speech was in dire straits, particularly in the creative industries.
Here’s my speech from 14.07.23:
This week Jack White, multi-million selling former lead singer of the White Stripes, came after actors Mel Gibson and Mark Wahlberg and comedian-podcaster Joe Rogan.
“Anybody who “normalizes” or treats this disgusting fascist, racist, con man, disgusting piece of shit Trump with any level of respect is ALSO disgusting in my book. Thats you Joe Rogan, you Mel Gibson, you Mark Wahlberg, you Guy Fieri. This is a statement from me not a discussion/debate.”
This was after those listed individuals were seen meeting former President Trump at a UFC fight. It also assumes that everyone you meet and shake hands with you must of course agree with one hundred percent.
Jack White’s statement typifies the puritanical progressive culture choking the creative industries. A stranglehold which tightened from 2016.
One wonders whether any of the musicians who work with Jack White and who, along with half the country, voted for Trump, would have the confidence to discuss politics on the tour bus, in the studio or within a half mile of the totalitarian rock n’ roller. If not, I wonder if such an environment of self-censorship is conducive to the free flow of ideas necessary for creatives to thrive.
Jack White also quit Twitter at the end of last year, along with a host of other artists, when Elon Musk took over. They included Sir Elton John, Meek Mill, Jim Carrey, Whoopi Goldberg, Trent Reznor, Shonda Rhimes, Gigi Hadid, Toni Braxton, Jameela Jamil, Erik Larsen, Téa Leoni, Liz Phair, Alex Winter and David Simon. Accompanying statements were pinged into the twitter ether varying on the theme of a concern for hate speech and the threat of unchecked so-called “misinformation”.
In a parallel universe, or say this same universe but thirty years ago, artists like Ice T wrote songs titled ‘Freedom of Speech’ defending the First Amendment. It was in 1985 when Frank Zappa argued at a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee that the Parents Music Resource Centre’s proposed censorship “infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children”.
Today the prospect of Elon Musk bringing Twitter’s censorious tyranny to an end, exposing the “Visibility Filtering” - or shadow-banning - of artists, politicians and citizens alike, is either ignored or deplored by progressive artists. Those in support of Musk by and large self-censor.
I was struck yesterday listening to Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi speaking in the main room. Taibbi described the one oddity of his whole investigation of the Goverment-Intelligence-Media-Tech collusion on censorship:
“The part that didn’t compute for me was that so many people in the general public were accepting of the situation, and this included a lot of people I knew. A lot of people in this country are ok with censorship. They think its not only appropriate but desperately needed.”
Artists’ general approval of censorship doesn’t stop with deleting an app. They are actively calling for the censorship of other artists.
You will remember at the beginning of 2022 when a host of musicians including Neil Young, Joni Mitchel and Crosby, Stills and Nash went after Joe Rogan. Neil Young specifically demanded that Spotify remove episodes of the Joe Rogan podcast or else he would remove his music from the streaming platform. This is an important detail. He did not simply leave the platform - which of course would still be completely over the top - who here at Freedom Festival would not defend Neil Youngs freedom of association, or in this case disassociation?
The crucial difference was that Neil Young was specifically calling for the censoring of Rogan. He wanted the comedian silenced. He wanted those episodes removed. I shall also remind you that Rogan was promoting the use of Ivermectin to treat Covid, a drug which was FDA approved in 1996. Neil Young on the other hand was arguing, or tantruming, in favour of Toni Fauci’s rushed Emergency Use Authorised vaccines.
Two weeks ago hundreds of celebrities and artist signed an open letter to Big Tech leaders to censor “anti-trans hate” and “malicious disinformation about trans healthcare” from social media. Artists included Amy Schumer, Camila Cabelo, Demi Lovato, Elliot Page, Jamie Lee Curtis, Judd Apatow, Lena Dunham and Zooey Deschannel. They specifically demanded censorship for “misgendering, deadnaming” and “disinformation about medically necessary healthcare for transgender youth”.
The irony of the letter is that it is itself spreading dangerous “disinformation” about unnecessary and irreversible medical treatment and procedures for gender dysphoric minors. These artists demanded “specific mitigations on such disinformation must be developed akin to COVID 19 mitigations and rules”.
Another phenomenon, which is a consequence of the creative industries’ puritanical progressivism, is the professional punishment for artists who exhibit wrongthink.
Earlier this year British-Sri Lankan rapper MIA was dropped from the music festival Field Day in London. The event organisers said it was because of her “online comments” and that “a booking may be viewed as an endorsement of her views. We are, and always intend to remain, politically neutral.” Somehow it went over their heads that to cancel someone because of their political views was of course the very opposite of political neutrality. MIA had criticised the vaccine roll out.
This is a pretty serious case. Festivals are a big part of an artist’s income. A payday for many of them. A payday which supports large crews and precarious touring budgets. Younger artists will see how MIA was treated and decide better to keep schtum. So self-censorship prevails.
Some other examples of punishment for wrongthink:
Gina Carano was dropped by Lucas Films for her political opinions.
Spitfire Audio suspended their co-founder Christian Henson for tweeting concern about autistic children falling prey to trans ideologies.
‘Notting Hill’ actor James Dreyfus was erased from ‘Dr Who’ for publicly supporting JK Rowling.
And don’t get me started on the treatment of J.K. Rowling.
‘Father Ted’ creator Graham Linehan has been completely ostracised from comedy for standing up to trans ideology. He was suspended from twitter for writing “men aren’t women tho”. Trans Radical Activists came after him and his family. The ‘Father Ted’ musical was cancelled.
Indie rock artist Ariel Pink was dropped by text message from his record label after attending the Trump rally on Jan 6th. He did not go to Capitol Hill, I note, but was accused as such. This is particularly egregious as he is an example of someone being cancelled for something he didn’t even do.
Shane Gillis the comedian was sacked from SNL for jokes about asians deemed racist. In the same comedy segment he made “racist” jokes even against his own race.
Two weeks ago the 100% Electronica festival dropped indie artist John Maus from their bill. Maus had allegedly attended the Jan 6th Capitol Hill protest. He has since “unambiguously denounce[d] all racism, white supremacy, hatred, etc”. But there is no forgiveness by the regime.
The keyboard player from Brit-award winning indie band Elbow, Craig Potter, had his social media completely swiped after posting gender-critical concerns on the treatment of children by trans ideologues. He seems to have kept his job. Elbow’s lead singer Guy Garvey, faced no such consequences when criticising Brexit and Trump.
Rosie Kay was forced to resign from her own dance company for her gender-critical opinions.
Many of these people I have interviewed, by the way, on my podcast at The Spectator, Marshall Matters.
So why are the arts in such a state?
Groupthink. All communities are susceptible to groupthink. That’s understandable. Unchecked and unchallenged ideas develop in all groups. Package-deal politics dictate a certain stance on issues like trans, vaccine mandates, environmental scepticism, BLM, Antifa, Trump, Brexit. Deviate from scripture at your peril.
Narcissists. I suspect the creative industries attract a higher proportion of narcissists. Not only is there the famous cliché of the egotistical front-man - although I do think big egos make for great front men - but the introspective artists spends an unusual time thinking about themselves. This is compounded by the fact that often they themselves are the product they are selling. Their identity is inextricably linked to their work. This is compounded again by social media.
One of the components of narcissism is “splitting” - which is to see the world in simple black-and-white, goodies-and-baddies low-definition, and assumes you are the goody. And we all know how this plays out on social media which is no ally of nuance. So a puritanical approach to politics flourishes.
It is the industry of feelings. Artists are in the business of making us feel. And we are in an age when hurty feelings must be avoided at all costs.
Personality types. As described by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff in the ‘Coddling of the American Mind’ - being high in trait openness of the Big Five personality types correlates with being politically progressive. It also correlates with being a “poet”.
Having said that you might also expect that artists being high in trait openness, and *openness to ideas* specifically, would lead to a high concentration of heterodox thinkers.
Sure enough there are plenty of heterodox thinkers there. I’ve had many high profile folk stars, pop stars, rock stars reach out to me privately since I dared to pop my head over the parapet. Nevertheless it isn’t clear to me whether a minority of totalitarians are freezing the rest of them into self-censorship or whether it is indeed a majority who support censorship.
They are in power. Censorship is almost exclusively imposed by people who are in power, as a means of maintaining power. It is a weapon used by tyrants. Progressive popularity of censorship can also be explained by the success of progressives - they dominate the institutions, from academics to the deep state, from Hollywood to Pennsylvania Avenue.
What I have so far described is one half of the story of censorship in the creative industries.
I’m not going to give you a deep dive into the other half, but it’s worth touching on. This censorship is by the gatekeepers rather than the artists and comes disguised as DEI - Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
A playwright friend of mine in London was told production would not go ahead on a new script because neither of the writers matched the identity of the central protagonist.
Last week in New York I spoke to an art curator who told me galleries chose artists not by the quality of their work but by the colour of their skin.
Diversity quotas aren’t ever as jarring as they are in Hollywood period dramas. An actor friend of mine in London and he has told me that several times he has been offered jobs, only to have them rescinded on account of his being white.
These are of course anecdotal. But you will hear this story from anyone you speak to in the arts. No one denies it is happening. The contention is only whether they are in favour or against.
Publishing seems to be completely captured. Not only are classic works by Roald Dahl being edited and Virginia Wolf being given trigger warnings, but it is significantly harder to get work published that doesn’t follow the progressive narrative. Authors can always self-publish but its a hell of a lot harder to find an audience that way.
As an aside, I interviewed former muslim Yasmine Mohammad who told me no publishing house would take her book ‘Unveiled’, all of them referencing Salman Rushdie. It seems on top of everything else the creative sectors have also internalised Islamic blasphemy laws.
The arts have their gatekeepers who, in conjunction with hysterical censorious artists, are stifling the industry. As a consequence the arts are producing insipid, bland, idealogical work.
But I’m not without hope. Some artists are proving to be great exceptions. Shane Gillis has gone on to be one of the most popular comics in the country. The mighty Joe Rogan is still the most listened to podcast in the world. MIA, who I mentioned earlier, still makes punchy avant-garde records.
At least there are some artists out there, like her, who think for themselves. “Freedom is a sate of mind” she sings on her new album. It is they who carry that torch of freedom to the next generation of artists. I hope those artists will look back at the censors of today as we look back at the McCarthyist surveillance of Peter Seeger and Woody Guthrie, or the censors of the 1980s coming after NWA and Frank Zappa…
…with utter disdain.
Thanks for reading, and to those who came to listen in Memphis - a double thanks. It was great to meet so many wonderful people. Another observation is that the ideas-space I now find myself in is overwhelmingly, if not completely, dominated by people with high-trait openness, and specifically *openness to ideas*. That being the case it is filled by friendly, engaging people of all stripes. People who cherish, rather than fear, free speech. A world away from the music industry.
WM
Thank you Winston. You are one of the honest ones out there in the entertainment arena and many of us appreciate your bravery.
Win, please use a hawk-eyed copy editot/proofreader for your worthy writing, to avoid wince-inducing typos like "trash" for "trans." I'm a career editor and would be honored to volunteer as a thank you for 25% of the joy of M&S.